The present invention relates in general to skin or hide processing equipment, and in particular to a new and useful device for holding the end of a skin which is being let out.
An apparatus for letting out skins is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,416,125. When a skin is let out, the skin is parted by means of a parting sword obliquely to its lateral edges and subsequently divided into two parts. Then a so-called backspacing is carried out, in that one skin portion is laterally offset relative to the other. Thereafter the skin parts are sewn together again, whereupon the skin is displaced crosswise to the cutting direction to perform the next cut. These operations are repeated until the entire skin has been let out.
During the letting out process, the skin is held by two clamping jaws cooperating like pliers and movable relative to each other in lengthwise direction. After the sewing, the skin is seized at the seam protrusion by a gripper and displaced on the table boards crosswise to the parting sword and hence crosswise to the seam direction, to carry out the next letting out operation. Thereafter, the return movement is carried out, i.e. the gripper moves the skin parallel to the cutting line, to obtain a constant distance between the sewing machine and the respective seam start at the skin.
Now it is an essential prerequisite for a satisfactory work result that in the fully let out skin, all seams run parallel. This means that during the letting out process the angle between the skin edges and the parting sword or respectively the gripper, must not change. For this purpose, a weight has heretofore been hooked to the rear end of each skin, making use of a clasp and a cord. The cord is guided between pairs of a plurality of pins arranged side by side, in such a way that the cord runs essentially parallel to the center line of the skin, so that a pull in longitudinal direction is exerted on the skin.
It has been found that the initial angular position of the connecting cord may have to be corrected several times during the treatment of a skin by rehanging it between different pins, because due to the different thickness between the dorsal and the belly portions and because of uneven distribution of the sweat glands, each skin has sectionwise an irregular stretch behavior and hence the tendency to become distorted during processing.